


Chat With Me

by Aethersprite



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Bad Puns, Comedy, Did I mention the puns?, Gen, Identity Reveal, Reveal, like seriously they're pretty bad, puns
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-16
Updated: 2016-03-16
Packaged: 2018-05-27 01:21:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6263929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aethersprite/pseuds/Aethersprite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Marienette is fairly certain she's stumbled upon the true identity of Chat Noir, but the only safe way she can think of to affirm it is to do something she never thought she'd do... Make some truly pawful puns.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chat With Me

“Marienette, shouldn’t you start your homework?”

The girl in question was jolted from her magazine-induced daze and smiled sheepishly at her gently chiding kwami. “I should, Tikki… But this issue has Adrien’s new spreads! The one with my hat!” She gestured to the page she’d been staring at earlier, a particularly good shot of her crush’s head. It’d been several months for her design to take its turn in the spotlight, so she felt it was reasonable to allow herself a few minutes to stare!

… In the grand scheme of things, half an hour was still only a few minutes.

And anyway, it really _was_ a good shot. She couldn’t really put her finger on it, but he seemed more… Genuine? Yeah, he looked genuinely happy, sporting a grin that reached his eyes. Chin resting on his hand, familiar metal ring adding a nice touch. Though, now that she thought about it the look was a little more mischievous than Adrien’s smiles usually were, and coupled with the black headwear…

Marienette blinked. No way, she thought as she laughed at herself. For a moment there, she had been about to say that Adrien, _Adrien Agreste,_ looked an awful lot like Chat Noir. But no, that wasn’t possible. She was silly for even thinking it! Sure, they had the same hair color, and eye color, and they both had a ring they always wore… But that was the kicker there, Chat’s Miraculous ring was kinda out of style, if you asked her, and there was no way Adrien would wear something like that for a shoot! Determined to prove to herself wrong, she focused on her classmate’s ring.

A ring that was exactly the same shape as Chat Noir’s.

This wasn’t happening.

This definitely wasn’t happening, this couldn’t be right, Adrien couldn’t be Chat because, because that meant he knew her! Her, as in _her!_ He knew Marienette, the girl who was horribly clumsy and so awkward around him she had difficulty not garbling up sentences longer than a word to him. The girl who was cringe-worthy whenever she was so much as in sight of him and had complete freak-outs about him and whose walls were completely plastered with pictures of him and _oh god._ He’d been in her room. He’d seen her room as Chat Noir. He’d seen her room, covered in pictures of himself.

Oh _god_ , Ladybug was so cool and collected and everything that Adrien knew Marienette wasn’t. 

“Marienette?” The kwami’s voice was laced with concern, “Is something wrong?”

“Oh my god! Oh my god Tikki this can’t be happening I’m me he’s going to be so disappointed in me this is just, oh god oh god oh—“ Suddenly Tikki was on her nose, tiny arms waving in her face.

“Marienette! Marienette, it’ll be okay, please just tell me what’s wrong!”

“It’s him! _Adrien is Chat!_ ”

… Which meant that Chat was Adrien. Thinking about it like that made it marginally better, because at least that meant that Adrien liked bad puns and made bad puns and annoyed her to the ends of the earth, and was generally a total dork. A dork who always had her back, was an incurable flirt when it came to her, and… He’d seemed to think she was pretty okay, at least, when she’d helped him with the Evillustrator.

“Oh, Marienette…” The kwami nuzzled her cheek. “Are you going to tell him?”

She didn’t want to. She really didn’t want to. But… That wouldn’t be fair to withhold that information from him now that she’d figured it out, especially since _she’d_ been the one so adamant about keeping their secret from even each other. But how? What would she say? ‘Hi, I know you’re Chat Noir and that’s OK because I’m Ladybug!’ No, she couldn’t do that! What if she was wrong? How could she tell him in a way that only _Chat_ would understand?

The answer came suddenly, like it was just waiting to _pounce_ on her the moment she finished her last thought, and it was something she’d almost rather fall off a cliff than go through with.

“…Yeah, of course…”

Puns.

She was going to have to make a lot of puns.

 

* * *

 

After much careful deliberation, pacing around the room, and a few dozen drafts, Marienette managed to send Adrien a text message that night.

_Meet me right after class tomorrow? It’s important. –Marienette_

Which was silly, because she knew he had to be picked up almost immediately by his bodyguard, but it was really the only time she could think of that gave her an easy opening for a tactical retreat. Lunch would have been perfect, if she knew he’d take the news well and assuming she could even manage to tell him in the first place. But if it all went downhill… She’d have to brave the rest of the schoolday after making a fool of herself, and if _Chloe_ caught wind?

She wasn’t going to test her luck.

 

* * *

 

In the morning, she was surprised to see he’d happily agreed.

 

* * *

 

He was waiting for her on one of the outside benches, and Marienette took a moment to steel herself before approaching. “H-hi, Adrien!” He was Chat, he was Chat, she could do this, she could definitely do this.

“Hey, Marienette! You… Had something you wanted to talk about?” He asked, briefly scratching the back of his neck. He was nervous, she realized. Of course he’d be, why shouldn’t he be? She must be plain weird in his eyes, always an awkward stuttering wreck, and for her to think something was important enough to actually _talk_ to him? He must think this was going to be a disaster.

“Yeah! I, uh. Wanted to wish talk- I, I mean, want to you about, t-talk to you about!” Wonderful. This was going absolutely wonderful, fantastic start, now Adrien really would never think of her as anything other than a painfully awkward and possibly stalkery fangirl. Almost as painfully awkward as his puns, because nothing could possibly be worse than those crimes against society.

Adrien Agreste was a dork who made bad puns and was secretly her best friend and this was absolutely ridiculous.

“Sorry, uh, I guess a _cat_ got my tongue!” She laughed, staring at his ring instead of his face, still nervous but no longer unbearably so. Chat was never going to let her live this down, if he really was Adrien…

Adrien, who was now staring at her with a very strange expression and not saying anything, waiting to see if she’d continue. Which she did, because it was a miracle she wasn’t a puddle of incoherent anxiety yet and frankly she would be all too soon if he didn’t say anything.

“If I’m, ah, _bugging_ you too much, maybe we should just _chat_ about it later…?” Oh god that was bad, and now he had the biggest deer-in-headlights expression she’d ever seen and what if this was a huge mistake and she was wrong and his driver was probably waiting for him and she was going to stop digging her own grave and make a run for it.

_“I guess puns are just_ noir _my sort of joke sorry bye!”_

 

* * *

 

“Come on, Marienette, it wasn’t that bad!”

She made a frustrated groan in reply, head buried in a pillow. They were just so cringe-worthy, and if she was wrong Adrien would think she was even weirder than he probably already thought and if she was right then she’d just encouraged Chat in the worst way possible! She’d never hear the end of it, she’d drown in his stupid puns that he was always way too happy about, the lovable dork.

“Yes it _was_ , Tikki!”

No reply. “Tikki?”

There was a knocking on her rooftop hatch, and she froze. There was only one person she knew who would be up there, who _could_ be up there, assuming it wasn’t the very slim but not impossible chance of an akuma.

_Chat Noir._

Though the nerves brewing in her chest were almost unbearable, she made herself get off the mess she’d made of her bed and make her way to the trapdoor.

His grin was a bit too large for her liking.

“Ah, hahaha, Chat Noir!” She did her best to act the like the fangirl she’d pretended to be the last time she’d seen him, just in case she’d been wrong. “And what do I owe being visited by the great hero of Paris?” While he _really_ didn’t need an inflated ego, Marienette was pleased to know that the whole ‘he was probably her crush’ thing didn’t affect her ability to talk to him.

“Well, Princess, word on the street is that you think my kinda jokes are the cat’s meow,” Suddenly all her nerves were gone, replaced by what she just knew was an oncoming headache, “And it’d be a _paw_ ling to let such an oppor _tuna_ ty slip through my claws!”

“Me, like puns? I don’t know what you’re talking about, kitty.” She crossed her arms with a smirk and waited for him to try and counter, knowing he’d have to admit he was Adrien if he wanted to prove that she’d made puns worthy of his own atrocious arsenal. If not, he had nothing on her.

Chat gave her a look of surprise, and she realized with a jolt that that was _not_ something she would have said to him as Marienette. But he’d just made it too easy to slip into her Ladybug persona, that opener had been so bad!

“I-I mean, that is to say, I…”

There was a faint giggling from her desk drawer that ended in an abrupt squeak, and she and Chat stared at each other with wide eyes.

“… What is that?”

She could feel her face going beet red as she threw her hands up in an exaggerated shrug, knowing it was doomed to fail even as she made one last ditch effort… What, exactly? Keep her secret safe until she knew if she was right about Chat’s? (A little hypocritical of her, when she thought about it.) “… My cat?”

He was grinning in a way that made it tempting to throw him in the Seine. “A cat that can fit in your pencil drawer.”

“It’s, a, uh, a rare breed of hairless pygmy cat from, uh, America! You know, Americans and all their genetically modified animals…” But she already knew that he’d already figured it out, dammit, and now she really wouldn’t hear the end of this, and even as he released his transformation she knew that now not even her seat in class would be a safe refuge.

But at least Adrien looked positively _delighted._

“I’d say the cat’s out of the bag, my Lady.”  

**Author's Note:**

> Honestly, this plot bunny just pounced on me out of nowhere and wouldn't leave me alone until I finished it, and I'm pretty glad I did! I don't feel like I quite did their characters justice, but this was more meant to be a funny 'what-if' kinda thing than anything serious. As a comedy, I'm reasonably happy with it and I hope I amused a few of you! : )


End file.
